Turn in your Bibles, if you would
please, to the book of Romans, and hold your place there in
Romans chapter 7. We want to look at the most comforting things
in God's word for his people. God wrote his word, his gospel
to his people to comfort them. and I want to address that today. But before I do, I want to give
some background that some quotations actually from respected men who
were wrong. These thoughts that they have,
these opinions that they had were wrong because they disagree
with God's word. And I say that with all trembling
because these men were much, much more intellectual than I
am. And they had a much greater, they had studied God's word much
more than I have. And yet they were wrong. So I
want to read these to you. I've entitled today's message, Walking in the Spirit. And we're
going to look at this today in Romans chapter 8. What does it
mean to walk in the spirit of God? But in order to set the
stage for this, we need to look at Romans chapter 6 and 7 before
we get to chapter 8. Now, this man has written a commentary
on most of the Bible. His name is William Hendrickson.
I'm not trying to apologize. I'm not trying to hide him from
you. I have a great deal of respect. I have one of his books. I have
a few of his commentaries actually. He wrote commentaries around
in the 30s. So he's no longer living, but
he's a very famous commentator and a lot of things that he says
are very good. For example, he has a book, a commentary on the
Book of Revelation, and that book is very helpful. But this
is what he said. He said, the hue and cry, H-U-E,
meaning the color, the hue and cry of the present day to the
effect that as Christians, quote, we have nothing whatsoever to
do with the law, close quote, has no scriptural justification
at all. It is, in fact, a dangerous slogan,
especially in an era of lawlessness. So obviously, when William Hendrickson
detested the fact that people would say that Christian has
nothing whatsoever to do with God's law. Okay, so that's one
of the people I wanted to quote, and I won't actually read the
next one. But the man's name was Samuel
Bolton, and he said this, God's law drives us to Christ for justification,
that's the first part. So the law drives us to Christ
for justification, and I can agree with that, because it leaves
us guilty, it shows us our corruption, and tells us we're unable to
keep the law. But then he also said, but the
gospel sends us back to the law for sanctification. Now that's
just flat wrong. And I say that very dogmatically
because, let me read this from scripture, okay? In scripture
now, this is not a man's opinion. This is the word of God. And
this is the revelation of God to his people for their comfort
and instruction that they might know how to live in this life.
And this is what he says. He said, my brethren, Romans
chapter seven, verse four, he says, my brethren, you also are
become dead to the law by the body of Christ. Brethren, you
are dead to the law. Now, what does it mean to be
dead to something? It means to have nothing more
to do with it than a dead man has. We were driving up to rescue
as an example of this. And we passed by, on the right,
some area that was burned with fire. There were trees and grass
and everything that was burned. And it was clear that a fire
had passed through that way not too long ago. But here's the
thing about that. That fire, if another fire comes,
it won't burn that place again because it's already burned.
Where death has occurred, there can't be another death. The law
has dominion over a man as long as he liveth, according to to
chapter 7, verse 1. He says, don't you know, brethren,
or know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the
law, how that the law has dominion over a man as long as he liveth.
But here, in verse 4 of the same chapter, he says, my brethren,
you also are become dead to the law. What does that mean? It
means, therefore, that the law does not have dominion over a
believer. Now that, sadly, People oppose
that. I just read two respected commentators
who oppose that. And we used to go to churches
called reform churches, and they also opposed that. They said
that the law was a believer's rule of life. What conclusion
would you draw if you were just a 10-year-old and you read these
words that the law has dominion over a man as long as he liveth,
and then, brethren, you are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ, would you conclude then that the law doesn't have dominion
over you? If you did, you would be correct.
Look at chapter six and verse 14. Sin shall not have dominion
over you, for you are not under the law. but under grace. Now you might
say, well, what does he mean by the law? Maybe he means the
ceremonial law. And this is another point where
unfortunately, and I've made every mistake I think that you
can make when it comes to doctrine. So when I talk about these things,
these are mistakes that I have made. But unfortunately, In this, where it says here, you are not
under the law but under grace, this has been confused by the
Reformed churches. But the Bible is clear about
this. What they've tried to do is they say, well, the law is
made up of a ceremonial law, and that means things like circumcision,
and observing certain days, and Sabbaths, and that sort of thing.
Then there's another part of the law that's called the moral
law, like don't kill, don't steal, don't commit adultery. Then there's
the sacrificial law, all the sacrifices and stuff. Is that
true? Well, it is true that the law
has those things in it, but does God ever say in the law that
this part of the law is the ceremonial law, and this part is the moral
law, and this part is the sacrificial, the priesthood, that sort of
thing? Is God divided it that way? No,
actually, He gave the entire law to Moses at Sinai, and it
included all of those things, and it was called a covenant
a covenant and he made that covenant with the nation of Israel in
those days. Now, a covenant can't be divided. You can't say, I'm going to take
this part of it and put these other parts aside. Because if
you divide a covenant, then you've broken the covenant. If you say,
I'm going to keep this part but not that part, then you're really
saying, I'm not going to keep the covenant at all. But more
strongly than that, In the New Testament, it says that the law
was abolished. Abolished. And he says that in
2 Corinthians 3. He said Moses kept a veil over
his face because the glory of his face, that shining face that
Moses had after he went up to the mountain and came back down,
it faded. And that veil was to not only
hide the glow of his face, but to hide the fact that the glory
faded. And in the gospel, he says that the reason the glory
faded is because the law was going to be abolished. It was
done away in Christ. Now, abolished and done away,
and dead to the law, and it has no more dominion over you, what
kind of a conclusion can we draw from that? The only honest conclusion
you can draw from that is that the believer is not under the
law. That's what it says right here.
Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the
law, but under grace. Okay, so we've established this,
at least in part, in some measure, that in 2 Corinthians 3, right
here in Romans 6, and Romans chapter 7 especially, and we
can go on and on with this, The believer is not under the law
of Moses. We're not under a covenant that
God made at Sinai. Hebrews chapter 12, for example,
reads this way. And if you have any doubt about
it, read the book of Hebrews. It draws this conclusion in chapter
12. Listen. In verse 18, you are not come
to the mount that might be touched, that burned with fire, nor unto
blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of, this is Mount
Sinai, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, which
voice they that heard entreated, they begged God that the word
should not be spoken to them anymore. For they could not endure
that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched
the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart.
And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly
fear and quake. But you are come unto Mount Zion. and unto the city of the living
God, the heavenly Jerusalem. Not Jerusalem on earth, not a
mountain on earth, but to the heavenly Jerusalem. And how did
you come there? By the grace of God, by the grace
of God, by the work of Christ. See, the gospel is the revelation
of a way to God that depends upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. That way is in Him, and it's
in Him alone. And the law is just this. If you were to distill the law
into all of it, if you could break it down into its simplest
way, the law is what God requires of me and you. To live, to find
blessing, to be approved, to be accepted by God. This is what God requires of
you and me. Do this, do not do that. These are requirements. And the
consequence of failing to meet those requirements, the law says,
is death. Curse, curse it is the man who
continueth not in all things which are written in the book
of the law to do them. So unless we can keep the law
all the time in all of its parts, then we're cursed. And that's
called bondage. An honest person will draw the
conclusion, I'm doomed, I'm damned, I have no hope before God, and
God's own law condemns me. And God's law would agree, yes,
you are, you're all those things. And that's what it says in Romans
chapter three. We know that what things soever
the law saith, verse 19, it saith to them who are under the law
that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become
guilty before God. Therefore, because they're all
guilty, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified
in his sight. For by the law is what? The knowledge
of sin. What does the law give us? A
knowledge of sin. Does it give us the ability to
keep it? No. All it does is identify sin. And then, as we just read in
Romans chapter seven, when the law says not to do something,
and this is the most difficult thing not to do, suppress and
change your inner self the way you think. Don't covet, don't
lust after things that weren't given you by God. You know what
happens? As soon as the law says that, you find yourself to be
not only guilty, but you look back on your life, and you see
all those things that you coveted, and you think about your present,
and you realize that you live for yourself. and you cannot
change that part of you. You're covetous. Covetousness
describes you and me. And so the law is just that. It's what God requires of me
and you in order that we might be approved of God, accepted
by God, be pleasing to God, and receive life from God. But the
law itself says, no, no, no, don't come here for life. The
law was ordained to life, it says in Romans chapter seven,
we just read in verse 10, for the law which was ordained to
life I found to be unto death, because the law had the promise
of life to the obedient, but it is a miserable comforter to
the honest sinner. But here's the thing about the
law. It so naturally fits our fallen nature, that we love to
live by rules. We love to live this way. And
this is where Romans chapter 7 is addressing our way of life,
and Romans chapter 8 follows it. In the book of Galatians, and
I'm going to summarize it because of time sake, we don't have time
to go through it verse by verse today in one message, but I wanna
get this message all the way out, so I'm gonna summarize it.
In the book of Galatians, this matter of law came up and was
put down by the Apostle Paul, by the wisdom God gave to him.
And the Judaizers, these were Jews, who professed to believe
Christ, who heard about the Gentiles, who also were professing believers
in Christ, the Jews, professing believers, said to the Gentiles,
unless you also keep the law of Moses, you can't be saved.
Not only that, but you just aren't quite as complete as a Jew who
believes in Christ, because we keep the law. And there were
so many conferences held upon this topic in the New Testament. The book of Romans, Galatians,
1st and 2nd Corinthians, every epistle of Paul addresses this
in some way. in some way, because this is
the issue. What about my sin? What about
God's law? How can a believer appear before
God without sin? And how can a believer, once
having believed Christ for salvation, how can they live in this life?
There's some honesty that needs to happen. In the first case,
we see the dishonesty. Remember the Pharisee in Luke
chapter 18? What did the Pharisee do? And
let's take a look at that because this is something we need to
re-familiarize ourself. This is the attitude, this is
the hope, this is the trust, the confidence, the assurance
of a man who is a wicked sinner. but not to men, he's not wicked.
He looks pretty good. In Luke chapter 18 at verse 10,
it says, and Jesus spake this parable unto certain which trusted
in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. This is what the law does to
us. Give me a set of rules, and the first thing, if you're a
dishonest Pharisee, you're going to trust that by keeping those
rules, you have met the criteria. You have measured up to the standard. You've met the conditions. That's,
it's called commending yourself. And it helps to have others commend
you too. You look good, brother. I see
you've done so many good things for the church. I mean, look
at your life. You're awesome, dude. Luke chapter
18, Jesus spoke this parable to those who trusted in themselves
that they were righteous and despised others. Here's the thing,
and this is what we don't realize. Every one of us are born this
way. This is what we are naturally,
Pharisees. We each one have a Pharisaical
nature living in us, an old Pharisaical nature, an old man. And here's
what he does. He trusts in himself that he's
righteous and he looks down on others. And don't we do this? Being critical of others comes
so naturally to me. It's just so natural. Why aren't
you doing that? You dumb head. You're so weak
or whatever. I'm joking about it, but it's
a serious problem. Look at verse 10. Two men, here's
the parable. Two men went up to the temple
to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee
stood and prayed with himself, Thus with himself, God, I thank
thee that I am not as other men. There's a confession of a Pharisee.
I'm not like others. I used to be, but I'm not anymore.
Really? He said, he goes on, he said,
I'm not like other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as
this publican. You've ever heard someone, in
order to be saved, you have to turn, you have to repent of your
sins. Well, look, this man's saying I did that. I'm not an
extortioner. I'm not an unjust person. I'm not an adulterer. I'm not even as that man over
there, that tax collector, that scumbag, that politician. He's deceitful and he takes money.
In fact, here's what I do on the righteous side. I don't do
these things, but here's what I do do. I fast twice in the
week. I give tithes of all that I possess.
And Jesus stopped the list there. He could have gone on and on,
right? This man would never have run out of things to say about
himself. You know why? Because when we live according
to the old man, the old nature, We love to live by rules. We love to pick up God's word.
We like to hear people tell us what we should do and what we
shouldn't do. And we like to look at how we're doing. We pull
out our optics and we focus. on ourselves in order to gain
a sense of respectability in our own conscience, confidence,
assurance, confidence to come before God. If I don't have this
confidence, I'm not going to be able to pray. But here this
man's bold in his prayers because he has this sense that according
to what I've been told to do, I've done it, I'm doing pretty
good. Therefore, I have some confidence. And when I mess up
and fail to do what's right, I lose my confidence. And I got
my head between my legs or whatever, and I can't do right. And so
I can't come into the house of God. I can't do anything. But
give me a few days, weeks, years, and I get things back in order. I've gotten myself back. On the
wagon, I fell off, and now I'm back on the wagon. And so people
are saying, yeah, you're doing okay. And I begin to feel better
about myself. That's called looking to self,
living under the law. And it comes out in religion.
There's only two religions in the world, by the way. There's
the religion of man's works, which is living by the law, the
rules, picking up the Bible and finding what I have to do and
what I shouldn't do, and trying to do that in order to gain this
sense of approval in my conscience or before people, and especially
before God. Here he thanks God. I'm not like
others. I finally got it. This is utterly sinful, and this
is something we don't realize. There's a word, insidious, and
it means a deceitful, cunning dishonesty that falsely represents
the way things are. It's the most dangerous thing. The most dangerous way of living
is living this way. Because, for example, we can
see it most easily in this example. I've given it before. There's
Jehovah's Witness. He comes to my door. I ask him a simple question.
I have one question. How are you going to stand before
Christ? What account will you give? And he says, well, I guess
that my, I hope my good works will outweigh my bad works. He
was honest, but he was wrong. Many people will appear before
Christ. They'll be honest, but their view is wrong. It opposes
all that God approves. Now, this is not a new doctrine. Remember in the Garden of Eden?
What was the one commandment God gave to Adam and Eve? There's
one tree in this garden, the tree of knowledge of good and
evil. Do not eat of that tree. Oh, actually, it looks pretty
good to me. Why would he keep us from wanting to eat that?
It's going to make you wise. The devil even said so. I'm kind
of hungry, and it looks really tasty, and it'll make me better. And they ate it. What was that tree? By the law
is what? The knowledge of sin. That tree of knowledge of good
and evil was God telling us in the very beginning the believer
cannot live before God, cannot come before God, cannot find
approval and acceptance, receive life or blessing from God by
depending on their own personal obedience to God's word. You cannot do it. The principle
of law is, here's what you must do. And here's what happens if
you don't. And here's what you can't do.
And here's what happens if you do do that. And that's called
living under the law. And so when you visit, when I
grew up in an Armenian church and they said, here's how you
need to be saved. It was all things you had to
do. And here's how you know you're saved. All the things that you
would do if you were saved. And all you do is you've got
these optics, these binoculars where you're looking at your
own performance, and you're measuring it by these standards that were
given to you in the Armenian churches, whether it be Your
will in salvation, your work in salvation, you're coming forward,
you're raising your hand, you're committing yourself, you're dedicating
yourself, following Christ. If you do all these things, then
you're a believer. Or here's one, you don't feel like a believer,
you need to call out to God for mercy. Well, what do I do if
I don't feel like I'm a believer after I've done that? You keep
calling. Well, I still don't. Keep calling. All these things
lead to nothing except self-focus. The law produces an inward focus
on me. And the gospel comes, and it
raises up the bar so high that it says if you've broken one
commandment, you've broken them all. And this one is an inward
one, don't covet, so let's highlight that one. Jesus told the rich
young ruler in Matthew 19, you've done everything? Okay, well then
go sell all you have and give it to the poor and then come
follow me. And that struck at the covetousness of his heart.
And it affirmed Jesus' words that a man inside of a man is
full of these things, fornication and wickedness and every evil.
So that the natural man, our natural selves, lives like a
Pharisee. That's called, in scripture,
walking by the flesh. Walking and living by the flesh. We think of it like this. Who
are those who live by the flesh? Well, it would be those fornicators
out there. All those people over in Sodom
and Gomorrah. Well, they certainly do. But
what's the root underneath that lifestyle that caused them to
do that? There's people in life who say,
I don't know God. I don't believe in God. I just
live my life. And that's it. They're living
by the flesh. And there are people who say,
no, no, there's a God. And I come to him by doing right.
And you look at their lives, and you find out they're better
Christians than you are. Really, they do much better than
you are. They give tithes of everything. You've kind of, well,
I don't know about that. You've got these. You got these
places where you know you're being dishonest, but you can't
admit it, so you have to admit, that guy's better, he's more
righteous than I am. When you measure yourself by
these standards, you'll find people are up here, people are
down there, and you can like go, ooh, I don't want to get
around them, and you don't feel comfortable, and then you find
people, yeah, I can't hang with them because they're so despicable. I'll find people on my level,
and we'll all be happy together. It's a horrible life. It's a
life of pride and it's a life of fear. On the one hand, we
commend ourselves and on the other hand, we condemn ourselves
because we can't do it. Moments of honesty, we realize
it's like a man who's been drunk and I'm a horrible drunk and
I can't get out of it. You're right, you can't. And
I can't help you while you're drunk either. So that's just
the way it is, right? And this is the point of living
in the flesh, is that we live by these rules. We love to go
to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and pick that fruit,
and find something that we can criticize others with, and find
something to commend ourselves. But the problem is, it's like
a boomerang, it comes back and hits us, and then we find ourselves
unable to come to God, because someone said, how can I be a
Christian if I do this? I'm not going to tell you you're
a Christian or not, but what if you aren't? What are you going
to do? Are you going to get there by
stop doing that? How are you going to make it?
Well, the publican said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Look to Christ and receive from
him a full satisfaction for me. Period. I'm the sinner. And Jesus
said that man went down to his house justified and not the other. So there's a difference here,
and the gospel gives this difference. It builds up to it in the first
part of Romans, and in the end of chapter three, he says, now
we know that what things soever the law saith, it says to them
that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, all
the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds
of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Most
religion says, I'm happy with that, we're just going to draw
the line at justification. But once we've gotten justified,
we got to go on now and keep the law. They pretend that they
do. I mean, they go to church every
Sunday or Saturday, whichever one they choose is the right
day. They tell you that if you go out to a cafe on Sunday, then
you're breaking the Sabbath or whatever they do. You know the
rules, they're all over the place. They live by the law. They claim
to be believers. They profess Christ, but they
pick up the word of God and they view it as a rule book of how
I can make myself pleasing to God. And they think about how
they're doing. And this is the way we live naturally.
We are this naturally. This is our sinful self, our
fleshly nature. And Romans chapter 4 opens this
way, what shall we say that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to
the flesh, hath found? Remember, this was to prove that
justification comes not by flesh. And he goes into Abraham's historical
life where he couldn't have children with Sarah. And he had to come
to the end of that. He had to depend on God's promise.
It was all God's doing. And it was showing us that our
justification at the end of Romans chapter 4 is by the work of Christ. He was delivered for our offenses.
He was raised for our justification. And as Abraham did not consider
his own body now dead, so we can't consider ourselves. We're
dead, but God has put it all on Christ. so that the gospel
came to Abraham concerning Christ who would come through the Son
who would be born out of his dead body. And so the believer
looks to Christ who was born not by anything he contributed
at all. God did this. He justified us. And chapter 5 then goes on and
says, now we have peace with God, but we experience tribulations
in our life, don't we? Yes, we do. And it's terrible.
but be comforted because these tribulations have a purpose and
in them the Holy Spirit of God sheds abroad the love of God
by showing us Christ. Remember Romans chapter five?
Let me read verse five. Hope maketh not ashamed because
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost
which is given to us for when we were yet without strength
in due time Christ died for the ungodly. And he goes on, he just
lays it on layer after layer when we were without strength,
when we were sinners, when we were enemies of God, we were
justified by Christ's blood, we were reconciled to God by
the death of his son, and since we have been reconciled, by Christ's
death, how much more will we be saved by his life? That's
the way Romans 5 is laying it out for us. After Romans 4, proving
that we could not justify ourselves, Romans chapter 3 brings the law
in and says, you see what the law does? It condemns you to
death and you have no strength to keep it. So he's trying to
remove this dependence that we naturally have upon the law by
pointing us to the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel comes along
and he sweeps away all confidence, any dependence, any trust we
have in our own personal obedience. to gain acceptance or approval
or be pleasing to God, but to come to God only one way, through
faith, which means coming to God only through what Christ
has done. We look to Christ as the publican
cried out to God, Lord, you look to him for me. That's what faith
does. Lord, you look to him for me. And we look to Him and we see
God is satisfied, God required Him, God accepted Him, and He
accepts all those in Him. That's the Gospel, right? And we've come to this, and now
we ask, now what? And Romans 5 says, in all the
trouble of your life, it's only serving to prove the work of
God for you, because in you, he's working this out so you
are directed to Christ and all that he did for you when you
were a sinner. And in his life, his resurrected
life, he's going to save you to the uttermost. But then he
says in the end of Romans chapter five, after giving this account
of Adam and Christ, he says, moreover, verse 20, the law entered
that the offense might abound. So the God's holy law came in
in order to make sin appear like a fire, pouring gas on the fire,
it just exploded. He says, But where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. How? How did grace much more
abound? Did grace abound in this way
that God said, okay, I'm going to give you the strength to keep
the law, finally. I'm gonna show you that you are
a despicable sinner, but I'm gonna convince you that you're
such a bad sinner and my way is the right way, that you'll
turn to the right way and you'll do right, finally. And that you'll
keep the law, is that what he's saying? No. Verse 21, as sin
reigned unto death, Sin had reigned like a king.
The result was death. Even so, might grace reign as
a king, Christ is that king, through righteousness, and not
ours, unto eternal life by our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see
that? That's Romans 5.21. So grace reigns through the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and out of his righteousness, We're
given eternal life. Now the law promised that if
you obey the law and keep it, you'll have life as long as you
do. But the gospel says one man. The Son of God in our nature,
the Lord Jesus Christ, for His people as the second and the
last Adam, stood for them, and He fulfilled the obedience God
required, so much so that in His obedience unto death, He
worked out an everlasting righteousness, and on that basis, we're not
just given life that's tenuous, but everlasting life. and so
much so that he squashes death, it can't rain anymore, and now
this eternal life is raining righteousness, grace rains through
his righteousness onto our eternal life. Amazing. But in Romans
6, he has to answer this concern that since the law entered, grace,
I mean, the sin abounded, what are you saying then? Are you
saying that because we're saved by grace, we could just do what
we wanted? What are you saying? Are you saying that we get to
go kill and steal and covet and commit adultery all we want to
now? No, no, no, of course not. And in Romans chapter six, he
says some amazing things here. Notice in verse, Verse two, no,
he says, not to that. We will not continue in sin that
grace may abound. We're not gonna do that. The
believer doesn't take the gospel and say, I've been looking for
a license to do what I wanted to do as a sinner, and I found
it, and I can do it in peace now. That is not at all what
the believer says, right? No. He says this, how shall we
that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know ye not,
notice this, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into his death, therefore we are buried,
notice the preposition, with him, with him, by baptism into
death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness
of life. newness of life, not the oldness. And how did we live in the oldness
of the letter? Not in the oldness of the letter,
but in the newness of the spirit. And you see that in Romans chapter
7, and he says in verse 6, now we are delivered from the law,
that being dead wherein we were held, that we should serve in
newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. In other
words, And here, what he's saying is that we died with Christ,
we are raised with Christ, we died with Christ to sin, we were
raised with Christ to live, and this life that we have is the
Spirit of God in us. We don't live this life in the
oldness of the letter. We live it in the newness of
the Spirit. Those are the words of Romans
7, chapter 7, verse 6. So the believer is dead to sin
in order that we would live in the newness of the Spirit. And
how do we do that? Well, it's not living as we used
to live as the Pharisee did, where we took God's word, God's
law, or anything that requires our personal obedience and find
comfort and confidence and all these things from that in ourselves
and before men and especially before God, but is coming into
the full understanding and persuasion of the gospel that what we could
not do God did in His Son, and all we are given is to admire
and adore and stand upon this and walk in it. So that as, Colossians
2.6, as we have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, when we were
sinners and had nothing and were guilty and helpless, and we saw,
not in self-focus, but in looking to Christ, away from ourselves,
and finding our all in Him, we found everything in Him. And so he became completely absorbed
in the fact that God has provided and received me in his son, no
longer in myself. I don't live by rules because
they never did me any good. They only brought me under condemnation. And wherever I tried to live
by them, my sin just became worse. Like when I got gum in my hair
when I was little, it just seemed to get all over me. So he's saying
here in chapter six and in chapter seven, something happened. Christ
died. Christ was buried. Christ rose
again. And in the death and burial and
the resurrection of Christ, something happened beyond our wildest imagination. A lot of times we talk about
the atonement as a substitution, and that's true. But here he
doesn't call it substitution, does he? He says that we are
dead to sin and we are also dead to the law, which is the strength
of sin. How? By the body of Christ. But we didn't die, did we? Yes,
we did. Well, then that wasn't just substitution.
If a man is accused of a crime and he goes to court and he's
brought before the judge, And someone else says, Judge, would
you allow me to stand right in his place and let him go sit
down now? And let me stand there, and I'll
answer for the crimes. And if I'm found guilty, then
I'll pay the penalty. I'll receive the penalty of his
crimes as a substitute. That would be substitution. But
here it says that by the body of Christ, we died to sin. And we died to the law. And we were made alive to God
because of His righteousness. So that God condemned our sin
when He made Him to be sin for us. He condemned it in His flesh
in order that we might be justified and we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Look what he says in Romans chapter
8. Considering all that we read in Romans 7, how the believer
now, he's been justified and yet he finds sin within. He's
told in Romans 6 that he's died to sin and yet his experience
is what? What about I can't do the things
I want to do? And I do the things I don't want
to do. What's wrong with me? God's law is good, but it makes
my sin appear worse. And when I live by the law, it
was just sin all over the place. And he says, I'm carnal, sold
under sin. The law is spiritual. What do I do? Notice the end
of Romans 7. Oh, wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? Remember the children of Israel? When
they were in the wilderness, when they came into Canaan, remember
they came into Canaan, what happened? They thought it was all gonna
be peaches and cream, hunky-dory. But they got in there and these
enemies just never really got rid of them. They were like ants,
they were everywhere, biting them and stinging and stuff,
constantly with them. And yet, and God said, I've left
them there to prove you. And so when we reach Romans chapter
three, four, and five, we think, well, everything's wonderful
because Christ died for us and everything's on him. But then
we get into chapter six, we're supposed to be dead to sin. But
in chapter seven, we experienced this sin doesn't seem dead in
me. So we wonder, I can't be a believer,
right? But no, the same reason God has
left sin That body of sin, the body is dead because of sin and
that sin nature is still with us, why? To teach us two lessons,
at least two. Notice, oh wretched man that
I am. That's the first lesson. God
is not going to let, He didn't remove that sin nature because
He's gonna require that until we die, we're going to have to
live by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone. And so we're going to have to
experience that in ourselves we are dead to sin and yet that
dead man is still attached to us, our sinful nature called
our wretched man, this flesh. this carnal mind that loves to
live by the law, that loves to take credit to itself or condemn
itself because it's basing everything on its own personal performance.
He says, you're going to find over and over and over continuously
in your life that you and yourself and your sinful self are wretched. and that's going to cause you
to do something. You're going to go like the publican to the
Lord Jesus Christ day in and day out, and you're going to
say, Lord, I am the sinner. Look to Christ for me. That's
the way you're going to live your life. And so he says, that's
the first lesson, oh, wretched man that I am. That's the conclusion.
And here's the next. The next conclusion, this is
the second reason why, at least, God has left sin, this sin nature
with us in this sinful body. It's dead because of sin, and
we're gonna have to live with this until we die, is to learn this. to raise the question as a rhetorical
question with this answer, who shall deliver me from the body
of this death? I thought it was dead. It is. But it's still with us as a dead
thing. He says, because by faith we
have to reckon these things to be true. He says, I thank God
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then with the mind, that spiritual
part of us that God has put in us, he calls it the mind here,
that new man, I serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the
law of sin. I don't live by the rules in order to make myself
acceptable. I look to Christ. That's faith. So over and over in the New Testament,
it says the believer, the righteous live by what? Faith. In Galatians chapter 3, verse
11, he says, but the law is not of faith. And God says in chapter 4, Romans
4.16, he says, therefore it is of grace that it is of faith
that it might be of grace. I mean, read it exactly the way
it is. In chapter four, verse 16, he says, therefore, it is
of faith that it might be by grace. To the end, the promise
might be sure to all to see. So faith corresponds to grace,
whereas my own personal obedience to rules corresponds to works
and the law. And I'll always have the motions
of sin just inflamed whenever I try to live by that old way. And in Romans chapter 8, he says
something very dramatic in verse 7. Look at this, Romans 8 verse
7. He says, the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not
subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. That carnal mind,
that sinful self that's within us, that is that Pharisee who
lives in us and wants to use God's law, His word, as a way
to commend myself and or condemn myself. He says that carnal self,
that carnal mind, is hostility itself against God. It's at war
with God. And then look at Galatians chapter
2. I want you to see this here in Galatians. In Galatians chapter
2, he sums it all up in Galatians 2 and verse 21. Galatians 2,
21. Here's the result of the truth. He says, I do not
frustrate. I don't make... God's grace of
no effect. I do not frustrate the grace
of God. For if righteousness come by
the law, then Christ is dead in vain. If we are justified
or sanctified, if we're made right before God in any way,
if we can please God by keeping the law, then we don't need Christ. If we don't need Christ, then
God crucified his son for no reason. Nothing could be more
impossible. Nothing could be a greater affront
to God than to say we didn't really need Christ because we
could have done it ourselves. That's what he's saying here
in verse 21. And look at chapter three in verse 21, the same thing
in a different way, is the law against the promises of God?
No, God forbid. For if there had been a law given,
which could have given life, verily righteousness should have
come by the law. If God had given a law, any kind
of a law, whether it be before or after salvation that could
have given life, then that's the way righteousness would have
come. If righteousness come by the law, then Christ died for
nothing. But righteousness didn't, no, Christ didn't die for nothing. Therefore, righteousness did
come by his death. The righteousness didn't come
by the law. No law could have given life.
Righteousness didn't come by the law. Life came by the righteousness
of Christ, His obedience. All of our standing before God,
from first to last, For from everlasting ages to eternal ages,
we'll always only be in Christ as believers. And we're to live
our lives that way. That's what it means to walk
in the Spirit. And so Romans 8 brings the greatest
comfort to our troubled mind. And in answer to the last verse
of Romans 7, who shall deliver me? I thank God there is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who, and
let me paraphrase it now, who live looking to Christ. That's
faith, who walk not after the flesh, depending upon their own
personal obedience to God's law, but after the Spirit. For the
law of the spirit of life, in other words, that phrase, the
law of the spirit of life, that means all of the gospel, all
God has said concerning our life in Christ, our righteousness
by him, our sin being taken away, all by his sin atoning death,
and we having died with him and risen with him, the law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law
of sin and death. Christ set us free. The gospel
has set us free from the law. You could say it that way. Not
the gospel just as a message, but the actual performance of
what is told to us in the gospel. Christ has set us free from the
law. In verse three, for what the
law could not do in that it was weak through our flesh, God sending
his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned
sin in the flesh. Why are we not condemned? Because
God condemned our sin in Christ. He joined us to Christ so that
our sin became his and his righteousness becomes ours. His death was our
death, his resurrection is our resurrection. Then he says in
verse four that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh. We don't depend on our
own personal obedience, but after the spirit. We receive the testimony
of the spirit that Christ is everything for us. You see that? And it's the insidious nature
of the old man to be at hostility with God in living in opposition
to the truth of the gospel, in disobedience to the gospel, refusing
to submit to the righteousness of God in Christ by trying to
retain some credit to himself that in the life of the believer
we're going to live now in some other way. Like we did before
we were saved by the deeds of the law. And he's saying, no,
that is not true. So the rest of Romans 8 is all
about that. And he reaches such heights of comfort in Romans
8, showing us that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us.
How? Because God, by his spirit, teaches us that Christ fulfilled
it for us. And that life given to us because
of His obedience enables us to see it and to be persuaded of
it. God's Spirit gives us life to
trust wholly on Christ. And we find in so looking to
Him that God says His righteousness is fulfilled in us. His life
is there. And that life can't be there unless His righteousness
was our righteousness. I hope these things help you
as a believer. How do we live? Looking to Christ.
How are we saved? Looking to Christ. Did you receive
Christ in a way different than you now live? No. Did you receive
the Spirit of God by the works of the law? No. Well, you're
not going to live by another way then. That's what Galatians
3 says. So let's pray. Father, we thank
you that our salvation from first to last is in our Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ. He, and He alone, has done this. He has saved us. He, and He alone,
can save us. And He, and He alone, will get
all the glory in our salvation. And may we be given grace to
see this and live upon Him, though we live with this enemy, this
inward enemy, of our old sinful nature. And in so many ways,
he wants this world, he wants to live in dependence upon his
own sinful works, trying to come to God that way. And he tries
to throw us into the doubts and confusion and all sorts of things.
We pray, Lord, you would give us grace to continuously look
to the Lord Jesus Christ and find him to be all glorious,
to be all that we have and all that we need before God, and
help us to proclaim His goodness in everything. In Jesus' name
we pray, amen. All right, we're going to stand
again and sing 116, page 116, Look, Ye Saints,